The Scope of Your Life
Making a difference that matters is a good way to orient your life in a world that is in transition.
The Unfolding of My Observations
Over the past three decades, I have served as an outside observer and intimate confident of leaders and their organizations.
Initially I saw three patterns of behavior:
A lack of understanding of ideas.
A lack of respect and trust in relationships.
A lack of ability to see how the structure of organizations affected people.
The result of these observersations was the creation of the Circle of Impact model of leadership ultimately bringing me to write Circle of Impact: Taking Personal Initiative To Ignite Change
It became apparent to me that the organizations were in trouble in ways that were hard to see as critical to their future. I wrote two short books about this. The first, Seeing Below The Surface of Things: The Brokenness of the Modern Organization described what I saw and had heard told to me. The second, Where Did Trust Go? Restoring Authority and Accountability in Organizations, was a response to questions about corruption in the leadership of organizations. A selection from each book.
The world of organizations is in transition. It is being played out in response to the COVID-19 viral pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests worldwide. The inadequacy and inconsistency of their response demonstrate that there is no absolute solution that can be applied to everyone, everywhere, all the time. It is not a solution at all. Instead, it is a simulated reality. They operate like the Wizard of The Wizard of Oz creating a simulated reality of fear and assimilation. As these events have unfolded, we see that they do not have absolute control over global public health or civic safety. They cannot promise or guarantee safe streets in our cities, nor a viral pandemic free world. They promise but cannot deliver. We are witnessing the breaking of organizations as indicators of the transitions our world is experiencing.
Paraphrasing the words of (Jean) Baudrillard, they have created a simulation of control, feigning to be capable of giving us what they cannot provide. How can we know this to be a simulation? There is no accountability for their performance. The simulation remains, just like the hegemonic culture remains.
“… these series of events point to a dramatic transition in society. This change is the de-legitimization of government. It is both a product of and a reaction to the severing of governmental authority from public accountability. This diminishment of governments’ relation to the public did not begin with these two events. They simply highlight in a dramatic fashion what many of us have seen transpire over the past several decades.
Trust between people and their governments has been lost. The actions of elected officials and government administrators send the message that they do not trust the people to act in a responsible manner. In effect, authority is control, and accountability is compliance.
In a similar way, public officials turn a blind eye to rioting in their cities. Looting and burning exploit the collective feelings of anger and grief that protesters express. In restricting the ability of local police forces to protect public property and private businesses, local leaders are saying that we no longer have the capability to control criminality and ensure a peaceful, prosperous community. When authority and accountability are lost, anarchy grows.
As a global society, we have crossed a line over which we cannot return. We cannot see this line because our perspective is fragmented, not whole. It has long been my contention that we are unable to see structure because we are so enmeshed with it, just like fish are with water.
We cannot see the break between authority and accountability because we do not even understand what these concepts mean. We throw words around as if we do, but the condition of organizations and society on a global scale demonstrates that we don’t.
We have crossed a line that we cannot cross back over. I do not believe we can simply apply a tactical repair to what is taking place. We are at the point where we must rethink the entire practice of leadership and how organizations are conceived and designed. This has been the focus of my work for the past thirty-five years. Even anticipating what was coming, I did not expect to see the collapse come so quickly.”
Much of my writing over the past two decades was primarily a search to make sense of this brokenness and the failure of leadership I was observing and experiencing.
Three conceptual frameworks emerged to explain what I was seeing.
These conceptual tools describe how modern organizations and the society that grew up to support them each operate within the relationship frameworks of …
This big picture perspective of the world and of our time is captured in this working map of the Two Global Forces.
My purpose in the writing was to describe what I saw as the Context for what we should do.
It was clear to me after twenty years of serving as a leadership consultant that what I saw were forces unfolding naturally. There was little that I could do as one person to address the brokenness of the modern organization. There is no stemming the tide, standing athward history yelling STOP, or running for political office with the noble and naive idea that I can change the world.
In the Introduction to Circle of Impact I described my purpose and the goal for my work.
As I started over in almost every aspect of my life, my Circle of Impact model of leadership grew in significance and practicality. For two decades my purpose was “To inspire leadership initiative,” by living my life with integrity as one of my core values. It brought me to ask myself, “What should be the measure of my impact?” Is it selling a lot of books, becoming a professional speaker, or becoming a recognized expert on 21st-century leadership? Each of those measures would be personally gratifying. But, they are not the measure of my impact.
If impact is change, then, “What is the level of impact that I want to create, that would make a difference that would matter long after I’ve passed from this earth?”
One percent. One percent of what?
I’ll know that I have achieved the impact that I seek when I see one percent of the world’s population take personal initiative to create leadership impact. That is 3.5 million people in the United States and seventy-five million worldwide taking action to make a difference in their local communities. The ripple effect will be a collective wisdom of learning to solve problems, create new opportunities, and create a better world from the ground up. More important to me, it means that the most insignificant person in any place, organization, or social group can, by their own actions, change the world.
Think about the lowliest, most invisible person you know personally. Imagine them doing something that makes a difference to someone, just as small and insignificant in the world’s eyes. What would it be like if one percent of all people worldwide found a person who believed that they could have a significant impact in their local community? The world would change for the better overnight. I’ve known people like this who have had an impact on a small segment of the world. Our world is far more resilient in the face of change because of them.
Understanding the context of brokenness in our world is not the same as understanding what to do about it. We need to reverse our field of vision. Turn away from that picture that holds our attention but has nothing tangible for us to do. We need to look close at hand to see our local communities. The key that I saw forty years ago was that leadership is not a function of organizational structure but of human functioning.
This is why THE Context of our lives is our Relationships to one another, and not foremost our relationship to the institutions of society. I wrote to help people develop their Networks of Relationships. This is different than our social media connections. These are people with whom we have a direct and meaningful relationship. We not only respect one another, but we believe in one another. We believe that we can take personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference that matters.
Taking Personal Initiative to Create Impact
The one piece missing from this description of my observations is my understanding about of the Transition that we are in. We can see the brokenness of the organizations and the importance for people to take personal initiative. Yet still not see that we are in the midst of a transition of historic proportions.
While I think it is valuable to recognize this transition that we are in, it is not essential for you becoming a person of impact. If you, your family, friends and co-workers decide to make a difference in your community, it will change. If you do something over and over again, improving your service as you proceed, you’ll see a better community emerge.
You don’t have to do what other people are doing. They don’t have to do what you are doing. What matters is that each of you are exercising your human agency to create a better home for you and your neighbors. It is that simple.
I’m a big picture kind of guy who likes to move from an understanding of the comprehensive whole of the world to the little specifics of actions that you and I can take today. That is right, you can do something today. You don’t need another degree or a strategic plan. All you need is a willingness to do and the openness to learn.
The Scope of Your Life
I ended Circle of Impact with a story of a presentation that I gave to a hundred high school students in Vienna, Austria in late 2017. I challenged them to think about the scope of their life.
I suggested to the students that they should order their life around the impact they could have. I asked, “How many of you are making a difference in some one’s life right now?” …
“Did you know that if you are seventeen right now, you would live another eighty-three years if you make it to 100? Do you know how many days are in eighty-three years? Over 30,000 days. “Now, I want you to consider making a decision today, that you will try every day for the rest of your life to do something that makes a difference that matters. As you reach 100 in 2100, you can look back on your life and all those 30,000 moments of impact will come flying back through your mind. “If you do this, how many of you think your life will be boring?” …
As I stood there in the high school library, looking at the bright future of the world, I wondered if I had made a difference to them. I decided to push my idea about living a life of impact to a ridiculous level.
“I am assuming that since all of you are business students, that you understand how to organize things. I want you to think about organizing your life around the impact that you can create.
“Now if you have 30,000 days ahead of you, and the potential for 30,000 moments of impact, why don’t you organize your life and work so that you can create a moment of impact every hour of every day for the rest of your life? After all, you will be doing something every hour for the rest of your life. Why not make each hour an hour for impact? We are now talking about you having 720,000 moments of impact in your life. Imagine the difference your life will have made by simply deciding today that you will live a life of impact.”
To live this way begins with a change in our self-perception. Most of us have not been raised to think this way. Rather, we have been taught the opposite. Don’t extend yourself. Be conservative. Don’t risk. Avoid disappointment. Play by the rules. Don’t stand out. Just fit in.
With this mindset, perspective, outlook, focus or intention, whatever happens, good or bad, is the Context for Your Life of Impact.
Just Do It! as the NIKE swoosh logo tells us. Not just anything, but the thing that makes a difference that matters. You can start today or tomorrow, but just start.
Thanks Ed - I am hearing the echoes of this in multiple layers, including the question: what is the song that is mine to sing, that others long to hear?
You accurately wrote on every subject I make culture projects for. I hope you can meet Florian Schneider and others soon. Another project to look at it Art Farm Iowa. Thank you Ed. Things are going to work out as long as this conversation keeps going and correct actions take place.